Journal: I woke up with a knot in my stomach again

NOTE: This is more of a Journal entry. You are welcome to read it, but it is mostly an emotional dump.

After 2 hours of lying in bed, it is no longer a knot, now it just feels like nails jammed in there. Got to write about it to try to get the bile out.

I do after 2 hours realize where this all comes from.

Yesterday, I had my sister drop off some stuff that Tiff gave me at Tiff's place of employment. I didn't want to see Tiff and I didn't want to make tiff uncomfortable by having her ex show up at her place of employment.

I put some bowls that she gave me and a twisted wire figure she made (a punk) in a bag to go back to her.

Then I went over to my sister's house and watched the daily show. John Stewart interviewed a writer who interviewed a lot of college age girls. The writer was shocked by the casualness of their sexual encounters. He talked about them writing about their "hookups" in the journals they let him read. He was shocked by how often the girl didn't even have a name for the guy they slept with. The journals had a breif description then a rating of how good he was in bed.

All in all, that was a cocktail for today's 4 AM wakeup call.

(For those of you who don't know the Tiff story, here it is in a nutshell. Tiff is 10 years younger than me. She came into my shop and I was instantly taken with her. We became friends. I felt I was too old to date her so I tried setting her up with a friend of mine her age who was "Johhny Depp-cool", but he kept standing her up. Eventually, I felt really bad about it and asked her out myself. We dated for 5 years. She broke up with me once during that time, but we got back together.

Over the last few years, we were having sexual troubles. She had slowly become a cold fish in bed. I hoped she would get back to where she was for the first few years we were dating, but I secretly feared I had fallen in love with another sexual abuse survivor. Tiff had gained about 60 lbs while I was dating her (She drinks cokes like a fish drinks water.) and the weight mad her feel uncomfortable about her appearance and her sexual appeal. Which made her not want to have sex. (This is the point in the narrative where all the guys say, "Dump her ass".) Which made her feel like she was a failure as a girlfriend. Regardless of how much I told her I loved her and how attractive she ALWAYS was to me (truth).

Anyway we had talked about moving in together last year around this time and had almost done it, but I backed out at the last second. I had always wanted her to live by herself first (which she hadn't done) and then at that point choose to live with me. But in spite of that I was prepared to move in with her. Then I started to worry about my (apparently only marginally bad) credit preventing her from getting one of the apartments she wanted. Then my brother had offered to help me get a house, and I decided that it would be a lot better for our relationship if I had something substantial (a house) that I could bring in --- that I could provide for her. So at the last minute I announced that I was trying for that. I think in retrospect she took that as a failure to committ to her.

Anyway the relationship was on the rocks after that, although I didn't realize it. She dropped a lot of hints that she wasn't sure where thing were with us. She frequently talked about how much better her relationship was with her stepdad. (He used to terrorize her and make her cry when she was a kid. He was not a fan of me, frequently saying throughout the 5 years that we dated that I was a loser. I didn't much care about his opnions, but I despised him for hurting her so much when she was younger.)

I wanted to have sex pretty frequently; she didn't at all. It came to a head in February when she had one of her rare sexual moments and we went to bed and she was just lying there. I felt bad. I felt like I had badgered her to do something she didn't want to do. So I told her no and walked away from sex (only time in my life).

I thought that things might get better from there. We seemed to communicate a little better oddly. Her birthday was coming up and she asked me to take a week off and spend it with her. I went over the night before our vacation was to start and we sat out at the jacuzzi. She started dropping hints about again. I had had enough of it so I gently steer the conversation to have her say what she meant. And she said she wasn't sure how she felt about me and wanted to break up to spend some time thinking things through. Needless to say, I was pissed, but I tried to be supportive.

She wanted me to sleep in her bed that night, but I was bitter. Why would I want to go from having a girlfriend/future wife to a piece of ass? What was the point of sleeping in the bed? Did she want to feel better about ripping out my heart? Did she want to have sex to make her feel better? To make me feel better? A consolation prize? I would probably want to have sex with her if I slept in the same bed with her---would it just be more of the same passionless sex? Fuck all that. I slept on the couch.

So ANYWAY...As I mentioned before, she had broken up with me before and we had gotten back together. I fully expect it to happen again. She didn't committ to me one way or another in the months that followed, but that was pretty much the same thing that happened last time. The only real difference was she was going out a lot more. Going drinking. I didn't know what to make of it as both of her biological parents have had trouble with alcohol, but I gave her her space as it wasn't my place. Then for one whole week in August(?) she didn't call me. This was odd as we talked daily. I needed to know. I called her and asked if I was an ex-boyfriend or a potential future husband. She responded "I don't see a future with you". 20 profanity-less seconds later, the call was done and we haven't spoken since.

I will never understand falling out of love with someone. I never have. I guess it is a chick thing.

So you are all up to date...and now back to our regularly scheduled program...)

I realized something this morning. Despite all of my protests to the contrary, Tiff WAS differrent from my previous ex-girlfriends and my response to this relationship failing is a little different. I may be focusing very hard on getting over her, but it sure isn't easy. I am expending energy to do this.

I trusted her. For 5 years I trusted her and could count on her. Tiff is not a ho.

I think the knot in my stomach comes from 1) missing her and 2) the final symbolic cutting of ties with her 3)my questions about my dating future.

I was invited out by a friend to go clubbing with him on friday to get women. I don't want to go. My friend made a convincing arguement. "You ain't going to meet anybody sitting at home."

My sister laid out my feelings pretty accurately. "Tobi, club girls are not what you want. Frankly they are diseased."

I suspect because my parents are older and were raised in the British empire my family and I are a ton more conservative than most about promiscuity.

Logically, i realize that not all women who go to clubs are looking to have sex, but frankly, I suspect most wouldn't pass on the chance to fuck a hot guy. That just seems to be how things are today. That's how younger women think. They have that habit. They are like "dudes". That is nothing I want to be involved with.

I want to have kids one day soon. I don't want to date or marry a whore. A lot of marriages (but not all) fail because one person cheats on the other. I want someone who is into me and me alone and wants to build a lasting family. I want to get married once. I don't have time for whores.

So how do you meet nice women? Maybe I could go to church again and try to meet someone. God looks out for me --- maybe he'd set me up.

Looking at churches as dating meccas for non-slutty girls:

My sister is Catholic. Sometimes I envy that. Catholics value marriage and work at it. I don't know if that makes them more faithful to their spouses than protestants. I don't know if they stay in unhappy marriages and that is the only difference (no good). But the numbers don't lie; they do take the institution of marriage more seriously.

Could I stand being married to a Catholic? I doubt it. I want my kids to be able to chose whether or not they want to be a part of organized religion. I doubt a Catholic mom would be on board with that.

Biblebelt protestants seem just as fussy as the Catholics, only they don't appear to live with any of the morality they hear about in their weekly church socials. Add in the pressure to get married and the divorce rate and I have to wonder what the attraction is to marrying a protestant.

Could I marry a Buddist? I did have a great time last time I went to a Buddist temple. But would a Buddist be anymore interested in letting her kids choose their own way? And frankly, I don't know a thing about Buddist morality --- although they have all seem very warm and welcoming.

Sometimes I regret that I was not born in a society that arranged marriages. Until you have seen an arranged marriage in action you should not mock it. I have been around a few and those people took it very seriously. Fucking up your marriage was disrepecting your families. I have a lot of respect for that. Those guys fell in love after the marriage BECAUSE they treated each other with the respect that they felt for their family. They had the kind of marriage that people should ASPIRE to---marriages based on trust and respect.

Honestly, I know the answer. People are the same everywhere. There is no good way to minimalize your dating fuckups by pulling from a religious cross-section. I should know that. I had a youth group leader who went on a cruise and got knocked up!

A portion of our society is very lucky---like my older sister Jane. They meet someone who is serious about doing whatever it takes to have a great marriage. Then there is everyone else.

Hopefully, one day I'll find someone who shares that level of respect and commitment who I love who loves me and wants me to be the father of her kids.

Well I can't say I am all too proud of this as a work of writing, but all the bile is out. Maybe I can still squeeze in a couple hours of sleep before work.